


safe with us

by polkadot



Category: Spindle's End - Robin McKinley
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 13:51:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13055268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polkadot/pseuds/polkadot
Summary: There were times during the day that Katriona went as many as three hours without thinking of the fate that hung over their house like an executioner’s sword suspended at the highest point of its swing.





	safe with us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [basketofnovas (slashmarks)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/slashmarks/gifts).



There were times during the day that Katriona went as many as three hours without thinking of the fate that hung over their house like an executioner’s sword suspended at the highest point of its swing. It was impossible to live forever holding one’s breath, even if a doom might fall at any moment. And as the years had gone by, and Rosie grew ever farther away from the beribboned infant princess Katriona had snatched from her cradle, it had in some small way become easier to bear. Or perhaps not easier, but more accustomed; like the knack of holding a toddler on one’s hip while preventing another’s baby-magic tantrum from taking the shape of a large toad and diving into the morning porridge.

Katriona’s life was a busy one, full of bustle and work and skinned knees and laughter and bedtime stories, the constant low shout of three-year-olds at play and the grizzle of her own teething son. Sometimes she had scarce time to think, let alone worry herself into a state about Rosie, tall and hearty and the opposite of fragile. Rosie seemed so sure of herself, so secure – and though Katriona knew the truth, she found herself proud of the fact that Rosie had grown to girlhood so assured and fearless, so decidedly obstinate. She and Aunt had not raised a daughter who flinched at shadows, even though they themselves knew what might lurk in them. Rosie, unknowing, was free. 

Yet even in Katriona’s busy life there came the silent moments. Sometimes the house fell quiet, when all the boarders were tucked up in their beds and Katriona’s own little son had fallen asleep, his teething fretfulness relaxed into angelic repose. Sometimes Katriona lay sleepless next to Barder, his snores the only thing grounding her as she remembered sitting on the bed next to a bereaved Queen, or fighting the reaching shades of Pernicia, the smell of bdeth juice rising noxious to choke her. 

They had kept Rosie safe for so long. And still it might be any day, any hour that Pernicia would appear at their door. Katriona would without hesitation lay down her life to protect Rosie, and she knew Aunt would do the same, but she also knew that the two of them had no chance against Pernicia, even together. She could only hope that Pernicia would not find them, or that help would find them first. 

The worst were the dreams. 

They did not often come. Katriona, like many witches, had mastered the knack to banish those dreams which meant nothing but only disturbed. Aunt occasionally had a foreseeing, but that had never come to Katriona. Usually Katriona’s sleep was dreamless, a few peaceful hours before the bustling start of another day. 

Sometimes, however, she was back on Rosie’s name-day, listening to Pernicia’s curse and unable to move. Sometimes she was caught in a snare she knew was Pernicia’s, watching as a laughing Pernicia dragged Rosie away. Sometimes she watched Rosie’s finger prick itself on an old-style spinning wheel, and Rosie fall dead at her feet.

Those mornings she was slower and quieter in the kitchen, and Aunt would touch her hair, wordless, as she passed by the stove. They never spoke of it, not with Rosie three feet away industriously cleaning her plate while simultaneously preventing a boarder from turning the eggs into snails, but Katriona thought Aunt must sense the dreams. Perhaps Barder too, for she always woke tucked tightly in his arms, safe from the storm. 

Today was one of the bad days. Katriona looked at Rosie and Peony, laughing together in the courtyard, and tried very hard not to think about last night’s dream, holding Rosie’s limp body in her arms. There should be a charm against such nightmares, but so far nothing she had tried had worked. They were the sharp reminder of what her conscious mind had learned to silently bear. Perhaps they kept her watchful.

“Rosie,” she said, keeping her voice light, unshadowed, “come churn for me.”

Rosie was not always the most obliging of girls, but today she came willingly enough, Peony gliding along behind. The house smelled of the bread she was baking for supper, and Katriona smiled at the way Rosie’s head went up and her shoulders eased as she came in. There was nothing like the smell of baking bread to put everyone at their ease. 

“Thank you,” she said, turning the smile on Rosie. “I have to finish this charm tonight for Matthew. Poor man’s had no rest since his last one broke. I think his sheep are enjoying being able to stray for once.”

Rosie was a strong girl, and churning wasn’t difficult for her. Not that she was brilliant enough at it that Katriona and Aunt had suspected churning butter to have been one of the unheard fairy gifts – which had always been unlikely, given that no self-respecting Princess would be down in the buttery with a churn. 

Peony settled down in a nearby chair. “I’ll spell you when you get tired, Rosie,” she said.

“No need,” Rosie said, cheerfully, setting to work with a will. “Just tell us a story to pass the time.”

Peony lifted a little boarder up onto her knee. “What about the one about the brave but silly Prince and the unlucky dragon?”

“Perfect,” Katriona said. Peony never failed to embellish the simple lines of the tale with cautionary addendums about rashness, which went some small way towards curtailing the more flamboyant manifestations of baby-magic. Nobody wanted to be the brave but silly Prince who ended up being turned into a fox cub for three months. 

(Except for Daisy, who thought being a fox cub sounded like fun, and spent most of her three-year-old year scampering about the floor of the house chasing Flinx. But that was some years in the future still.)

Peony began the story, and the little ones crowded around, their eyes big and round. Katriona worked on her charm, and Rosie churned the butter. Aunt was out about the village, and Barder would be home soon. It was a happy domestic scene, and Katriona smiled as she looked around at its warm comfort.

Tonight she might dream again. However happy her life – however fulfilled her home, stuffed to the bursting with the people she loved – her subconscious mind knew, with every breath she took, that it might come crashing down. Today, tomorrow, next week, next year… though Rosie seemed so inimitably normal, so reassuringly solid, so indisputably _her_ , there was a Princess living under her skin, and one day Pernicia would come for her. 

Yet if her dreams were the price she must pay for these quietly happy evenings, surrounded by her family, watching the way the light played in Rosie’s hair and on the open pleasure of her face, then Katriona would pay it. She had pledged herself to Rosie on that one day that had irrevocably changed the course of her life, and that came with both the good and the bad. She and her family would never live in safety, not until Rosie was twenty-one or Pernicia was faced; she would never sleep the sleep of the innocent, the free of care. Tomorrow might be the day of reckoning.

Ordinary had gone out the window years ago. Casta Albinia Allegra Dove Minerva Fidelia Aletta Blythe Domina Delicia Aurelia Grace Isabel Griselda Gwyneth Pearl Ruby Coral Lily Iris Briar-Rose was churning Katriona’s butter, and how could Katriona’s life be anything like ordinary, when her eldest daughter was a Princess?

If she dreamt dreams full of shadows – if she feared nameless fears – if she woke shaking – Katriona would calm her heart and step once more into the next new day, keeping her head held high. Each new day was one more day that Pernicia hadn’t come. Each new day was one more victory, and each time Rosie came laughing into the kitchen was one more joy. 

_She is as safe with us as ordinariness can make her_.

Katriona watched the untroubled laughter in her daughter’s eyes, and was content.


End file.
